<div class="refentry" title="glGetString"><a id="glGetString"></a><div class="titlepage"></div><div class="refnamediv"><h2>Name</h2><p>glGetString — return a string describing the current GL
        connection</p></div><div class="refsynopsisdiv" title="C Specification"><h2>C Specification</h2><div class="funcsynopsis"><table class="funcprototype-table"><tr><td><code class="funcdef">const GLubyte * <b class="fsfunc">glGetString</b>(</code></td><td>GLenum <var class="pdparam">name</var><code>)</code>;</td></tr></table><div class="funcprototype-spacer"> </div></div></div><div class="refsect1" title="Parameters"><a id="parameters"></a><h2>Parameters</h2><div class="variablelist"><dl><dt><span class="term">
                    <em class="parameter"><code>name</code></em>
                </span></dt><dd><p>Specifies a symbolic constant, one of
                    <code class="constant">GL_VENDOR</code>,
                    <code class="constant">GL_RENDERER</code>,
                    <code class="constant">GL_VERSION</code>, or
                    <code class="constant">GL_EXTENSIONS</code>.</p></dd></dl></div></div><div class="refsect1" title="Description"><a id="description"></a><h2>Description</h2><p><code class="function">glGetString</code>
        returns a pointer to a static string describing some aspect of
        the current GL connection.  <em class="parameter"><code>name</code></em>
        can be one of the following:</p><div class="variablelist"><dl><dt><span class="term">
                    <code class="constant">GL_VENDOR</code>
                </span></dt><dd><p>Returns the company responsible for this GL
                    implementation. This name does not change from release to
                    release.</p></dd><dt><span class="term">
                    <code class="constant">GL_RENDERER</code>
                </span></dt><dd><p>Returns the name of the renderer. This name is
                    typically specific to a particular configuration of a
                    hardware platform. It does not change from release to
                    release.</p></dd><dt><span class="term">
                    <code class="constant">GL_VERSION</code>
                </span></dt><dd><p>Returns a version or release number.</p></dd><dt><span class="term">
                    <code class="constant">GL_EXTENSIONS</code>
                </span></dt><dd><p>Returns a space-separated list of supported
                    extensions to GL.</p></dd></dl></div><p>Because the GL does not include queries for the
        performance characteristics of an implementation, some
        applications are written to recognize known platforms and
        modify their GL usage based on known performance
        characteristics of these platforms. Strings
        <code class="constant">GL_VENDOR</code> and
        <code class="constant">GL_RENDERER</code>
        together uniquely specify a platform. They do not change from
        release to release and should be used by platform-recognition
        algorithms.</p><p>Some applications want to make use of features that are
        not part of the standard GL. These features may be implemented
        as extensions to the standard GL. The <code class="constant">GL_EXTENSIONS</code>
        string is a space-separated list of supported GL extensions.
        (Extension names never contain a space character.)</p><p>The <code class="constant">GL_VERSION</code> string identifies both the version number
        and the profile. The form of the string is "OpenGL ES-&lt;profile&gt;
        &lt;major&gt;.&lt;minor&gt;", where &lt;profile&gt; is either "CM"
        (Common) or "CL" (Common-Lite), and &lt;major&gt; and &lt;minor&gt; are
        integers. OpenGL ES 1.0 and OpenGL ES 1.1 will both have &lt;major&gt; of 1 but
        0 or 1 for &lt;minor&gt;, respectively.</p><p>All strings are null-terminated.</p></div><div class="refsect1" title="Notes"><a id="notes"></a><h2>Notes</h2><p>If an error is generated, <code class="function">glGetString</code>
        returns <code class="constant">NULL</code>.</p><p>The client and server may support different versions or
        extensions.  <code class="function">glGetString</code>
        always returns a compatible version number or list of
        extensions. The release number always describes the
        server.</p></div><div class="refsect1" title="Errors"><a id="errors"></a><h2>Errors</h2><p><code class="constant">GL_INVALID_ENUM</code> is generated if
        <em class="parameter"><code>name</code></em> is not an accepted value.</p></div><div class="refsect1" title="Copyright"><a id="copyright"></a><h2>Copyright</h2><p>
            Copyright © 2003-2004
            Silicon Graphics, Inc. This document is licensed under the SGI
            Free Software B License. For details, see
            <a class="ulink" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20171022161616/http://oss.sgi.com/projects/FreeB/" target="_top">https://web.archive.org/web/20171022161616/http://oss.sgi.com/projects/FreeB/</a>.
        </p></div></div>
